u/AlivePassenger3859

The truth of hard determinism dissolves a certain sense of moral responsibility that a lot of folks don’t want to let go of.

This sense of moral responsibility is central to their world view and sense of self, but its obliterated by strong determinism.

The moral responsibility that determinism vaporizes is the judgy, self-righteous, vindictive kind. Its the kind the Old Testament Judeo-Christian god was all about. It often gets utilized as a tool of structural racism and and discriminatory dickery in general.

You know that right wing “tough-on-crime” mentality that sent masked goon squads into American cities to arrest a 45 year old guy who had been working at Home Depot for ten years? That’s what it destroys.

Of course a lot of folks have a vested interest in keeping that kind of “moral responsibility” alive. These people either live their lives in a fearful reactionary mode or exploit that mentality in others.

The sense of moral responsibility that does survives determinism is thoughtful, humble, compassionate, and practical. Its more concerned with the way things work than with emotions like anger and hatred.

Which of these takes on moral responsibility is smarter and better for human beings and communities?

For those familiar with Catch 22, book or movie (I prefer book), there are some parallels between Yossarian and Hawkeye.

They’re both sensitive flawed protaganists thrown into the horrors of war. Both think the military heirarchy they’re surrounded by is absurd and somewhat dehumanizing. They’re both horny. They both drink to try to maintain sanity. They are both somewhat rebellious smartasses generally liked by their fellow soldiers.

Of course there are differences- Yossarian is a bombadier, not a doctor, yossarian is mostly selfish and less concerned for his fellow man than TV Hawkeye was.

Other than that, Yossarian seems like a world war 2 Hawkeye. In fact, I can see a lot of inspiration that MASH may have taken from Catch 22. They made it their own, its not just a rip off for sure, but a little of the same feel maybe.

I am a health care provider and I type a lot of charts. Part of that is “signing” them at the bottom. Is it ok grammatically for me to type my own last name with a lower case first letter? Pressing the shift key every time is just too much work. This sounds like a joke, but with the amount of typing I do every saved key adds up.

In the aforementioned musical, the town drunk, Muff Potter, opines in musical form that “a man’s got to be what he’s born to be”. His advice in the face of this knowledge is that one should “just sit back and wait”….because “there ain’t no fighting fate”.

As a determinisit, I agree with Mr. Potter on one level, but cannot help but note the perverse irony that his true assessment of determinism has become a factor in his ongoing vagrancy and raging alcoholism.

Digging deeper though, one may come to realize that Mr. Potter’s unhoused status and love of booze came first and he chose his philosophy merely as a post-hoc justification of same.

What do you think?

If you feel you can encapsulate your view of Buddhisn in a few sentences, what would they be? Or maybe you feel this would be an oversimplification, and that this request/exercise is a little misguided. I’m open!

Do you have a commander that exploits a certain mechanic so well that any other commander using that mechanic seems pathetic by comparison?

Mine is [[Lathiel, The Bounteous Dawn]] and +1/+1 counters.

Ooh, this commander lets you choose a creature each turn and put a +1/+1 on it. This one lets you put A +1/+1 on a creature EACH time you gain life. This one lets you put two, TWO I say, +1/+1 counters on a creature.

They all just seem like such weak sauce compared to my homie Big L. I know there’s variations and different builds, but for anything with those counters, for me, at least, she’s a mic drop full stop.

Anybody have this with a different mechanic?

Just for discussion, for those who’ve read these authors-

I feel like neither would be surprised by how it turned out. In The Cyberiad by Lem, there’s a sentient giant calculator that destroys towns because it thinks 2+2=7. Phillip K Dick has semi-sentient doors that make you pay to go through them.

Both these guys, I think, saw the bitter and the sweet of AI, that it was likely to be used in really dumb ways by humans, and that it would have profound flaws.

I think they would both be delighted and unsurprised by the fact that ai regularly hallucinates and then tries to retcon reality to fit its error.

Of course we can’t sum up any Dylan song in a sentence or two, but most of them I can pick out themes or moods- Idiot Wind is about anger regret and longing.

At first I thought Jokerman might be a Dylan song about Dylan- he’s a gifted, complex dude,

but it seems a little grandiose and self-involved if that’s what it is. Not sure Dylan thinks of himself as a “manipulator of crowds”.

Then maybe its about an Old Testament obsessed Dylan’s idea of a villain like Man of Peace, Groom’s Still Waiting (Red), or the characters in Foot of Pride.

Again, these characters aren’t “friend to the martyr, friend to the woman of scorn.”

My best take is that its about these grand historical figures: Pharoa, Moses, Jesus, Alexander the Great, ALL the kings queens artists inventors etc who were born right place right time with the right personalities, and left a mark. Its maybe about being that and being human at the same time.

Dunno- just thought it might be good discussion fodder.